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Flat Earth Society & David Bovée

David Bovée was the first FES guitarist from 1999 till 2003. After four years he left the band to develop his own project "Think of One" (BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in 2004 and 2007). Whether they worked with throat singers from Greenland, Gnawa musicians from Morocco or Brazilian virtuosos, they achieved an exciting melting pot of music. David knows the Maracutu, Frevo, Ciranda and Coco music through and through.

World music was never really Vermeersch' thing, but when ‘Theater aan Zee’ (TAZ) invited both men to embark on a project with an ensemble of Gambian musicians in 2013, the experimental urge couldn’t be ignored. They traveled to The Gambia where they lived and worked with local musicians for several weeks.

They didn’t have to look hard for inspiration. In The Gambia, they saw the country leader Yahya Jammeh parading the streets of Banjul. The escort consisted of a number of hummers and majorettes, in uniform and with batons. As a proper dictator, he literally sprinkled money on the streets from one of the hummers open roof. The "Boggamasta" (a corruption of the Dutch word ‘burgemeester’, which means mayor) considered himself almighty, would rule for a billion years, and did not shy away from killing political opponents or prosecuting homosexuals.

It would be unfair to focus the Boggamasta story only on African countries or The Gambia; Boggamasta’s are everywhere, In politics, in crime, at the petanque club, in the music world, in the economy and let’s face it, also deep inside ourselves.

Bovée and Vermeersch went to work, wrote numbers and came up with raw and critical lyrics, instruments and cast were adapted: An exuberant repertoire, direct, energetic and frenzied music: feverish, delirious and groovy, and lots of electro!